


thousand-yard stare

by typervoxilations



Series: seventy years of sleep [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, M/M, References to Depression, References to Suicidal Tendencies, Sort Of, all relationships are background/mentioned, meta-ish, there if you squint-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 02:42:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14906810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typervoxilations/pseuds/typervoxilations
Summary: thousand-yard starenouna vacant or unfocused gaze into the distance, seen as characteristic of a war-weary or traumatized soldier.or, who will he be if he stops fighting?





	thousand-yard stare

**Author's Note:**

> Haha so Infinity War was a thing :) I don’t think you understand how much I just want Steve to be happy holy fuck? TW for lowkey hints of suicidal tendencies and depression. Pretty short but honestly, I got most things I wanted to say about Steve out in monachopsis and this is just a little footnote because INFINITY WAR and NOTHING ABOUT IT WAS OKAY, GOODBYE. One of these days I will show Tony as much love, I swear.

**thousand-yard stare**

_ noun _

  1. a vacant or unfocused gaze into the distance, seen as characteristic of a war-weary or traumatized soldier.



* * *

He can’t die. The serum won’t let him, not naturally. They took him out of the ice but he’s still frozen, has been frozen for nearly a century. Some part of him is still trapped on ice, in that moment before he takes the plane down, hanging off the edge of the train reaching out just as the metal snaps under howling winds. He’s trapped in a loop of war and death and loss and he can’t die, not really. The serum takes away his aches and pains, the astigmatism and scoliosis and arrhythmia and angina and stomach ulcers and sinusitis, the fevers and the  _ asthma _ , but he’s been dying by inches for years inside and that’s something the serum won’t ever be able to stop.

 

(His first words to Bucky, after seventy years:  _ Bucky?  _ He’s dying by inches and this is the moment he realizes.)

 

Thing is - he always expected he  _ would _ .

 

He knows he’s reckless, too bold for his body,  _ I can do this all day _ . He’s been throwing himself into fights since before the serum and then afterwards, everyone expected him to keep doing it. He did. He does. Of course he does. How can he do anything less? Who is he if he doesn’t keep fighting? What is he fighting for? He wanted to fight and he’s been doing nothing since.  He loses and loses and loses and loses - at some point he’s lost track of how much he’s given up. He’s used to it. He should be. He’s a soldier in a war and then another war, another and another; when has he been given the chance to stop? (Every part of him is frozen. The serum cured his asthma but he still can’t breathe.) War takes and takes - precious people (Abraham Erskine, Peggy, the Howlers,  _ Bucky _ ), precious time (He wakes, after seventy years of sleep, barely all of thirty-and-a-hundred), precious memories ( _ Where are we going?  _ Bucky’s smirk had been excitement barely kept in check.  _ The future _ .).

 

(The future was an awful lonely place.)

 

He’s not perfect. People forget, because of what he represents. He’s still human. He makes mistakes.

 

And he regrets.

 

Oh god, does he regret.

 

He regrets so much, but it doesn’t get him anywhere and he’s not supposed to show it.

 

He couldn’t save Erskine, but he had barely understood everything that he was then. He never made it home to Peggy, but he knew she’d have understood better than anyone why he did what he did and god, he loved her for it, loves her for it still. He hadn’t meant to drive that wedge between the team, the one that broke them apart. He hadn’t meant to but damn it, how could he not? How could he just stand by and watch what he fought for again and again crash and burn? Liberty and equality, peace and justice - these were not compatible terms and he had to learn that the hard way himself, when everything he had trusted in proved their freedom was synonymous with fear. He hadn’t meant for everyone else to have to, but he’s a man who stands up for the things he believes are right before anything else.

 

( _ I don’t like bullies. I don’t care where they’re from. _ )

 

Is he a man before a shield, or a shield before a man? When had the lines blurred? He leaves the shield behind because he just could not tell anymore. He’s dying by inches because he’d wanted to fight in the war so much, he’d let the war sink its’ terrible hooks underneath his skin, into every immortal cell in his body, and now he is neither man nor shield, bared to the bones in a way he hadn’t been in seventy years.

 

(Bucky’s last words to him, after seventy years:  _ Steve? _ )

 

(He’s still dying by inches, but he straightens to shoulder the burden of a shield that’s no longer there anyways.)

 

(Who will he be if he stops fighting?)


End file.
